The Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication evolved from the Project for Advanced Research in Global Communication and succeeds what was formerly known as the Center for Global Communication Studies.

CGCS worked with a global network of academics and practitioners on all of our research and public policy initiatives. CGCS affiliates are engaged in media policy, the role of the media in conflict and post-conflict environments, and questions of democratization and development, among other issues.

CGCS’s affiliates taught at our annual Annenberg-Oxford Institute, participated in Annenberg-based and international conferences, spent time at Annenberg as visiting scholars, and contributed to our research, public policy and publishing initiatives.

Some of our former affiliates are highlighted on this page.

SUSAN ABBOTT

Susan Abbott is an independent consultant for non-profit organizations, universities, and donors working in the areas of independent media, civil society, and education (at the university level). Abbott’s concentrations are in the areas of program design and development, monitoring and evaluation, grant writing, and organizational capacity building. She has experience working on USAID, US State Department, UN, World Bank, and a variety of foundation funded programs in the areas of civil society, governance, media and communication development, and internet freedom/digital rights. Abbott currently works as an independent consultant for Albany Associates; Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania; Central European University, Budapest; and the Center for International Media Assistance at the National Endowment for Democracy. She is an affiliate of the Center for Global Communication Studies at Annenberg, UPenn, and is a Research Fellow with Central European University’s Center for Media and Communication Studies. Abbott is also part of a UNESCO-led working group on media and the post-2015 development goals as is an adviser to the Communication for Development (C4D Network)

Collin Anderson

Internet Researcher

Collin Anderson is a Washington D.C.-based researcher currently working on documenting online activism, electronic surveillance and Internet censorship in the Middle East, specifically Iran and Syria. Currently, Collin is developing mechanisms to detect and measure the usage of filter circumvention methods, to quantify the proliferation of tools among the general public in Internet-filtering countries. He has also been involved in identifying the international flow of surveillance equipment and exploring alternative means of communications that bypass normal channels of state-control. His participation in issues of connectivity has led to documenting availability and legality of online communications services to the public under sanctions restrictions, as well as the ramifications of export regulations to democratization movements.

AMELIA ARSENAULT

Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, Georgia State University

Amelia Arsenault is an Assistant Professor of Communication at Georgia State University and also serves as the Media and Democracy Research Fellow at CGCS. As part of her work with the center she has coordinated the annual Milton Wolf Seminar on Media and Diplomacy since 2010. Her academic research focuses on how different international and domestic actors have attempted to leverage the changing dynamics of communications systems, and the ramifications of those activities for international relations, political and social power relationships, and north/south inequality.

She is currently working on a book project exploring the range of corporate and non-profit actors involved in political advocacy activities online. Her co-edited book The Connective Mindshift (with Rhonda Zaharna and Ali Fischer) on the subject of collaborative and networked public diplomacy was released in May 2013. Her scholarly work has appeared in the International Journal of Communication, International Sociology, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and Information, Communication, and Society. She holds a B.A. in Film and History from Dartmouth College and an MSc in Global Media and Communication from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a PhD from the University of Southern California Annenberg School. Prior to her academic career, she spent several years as the film coordinator for the Zimbabwe International Film Festival Trust, a non-profit visual literacy organization in Harare, Zimbabwe. Twitter: @Amelia263

JOAN BARATA

Principal Adviser to the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media

Dr. Joan Barata Mir is the Principal Adviser to the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media and a fellow at the Central European University in Hungary. Before that he was a Professor of Communication Law and Vice Dean of International Relations at Blanquerna Communication School (Universitat Ramon Llull, Barcelona). He was also a Professor at the University of Barcelona (2001-2005), the Open University of Catalonia (since 1997) and the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (2010-2011), as well as visiting scholar at the University of Bologna (Italy) (2003) and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law (New York) (2003-2004).

His writings and research interests include topics such as freedom of expression, media regulation, public service broadcasting and political and legal media transitions. He has provided assistance to several institutions and organizations regarding these issues in countries such as Thailand, Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon, Jordan, Albania, Hungary, Dominican Republic, Colombia and the United States. He has been Head of President’s Cabinet (2005-2009) and Secretary General of the Catalonia Audiovisual Council (2009-2011). He has also provided assistance to the OSCE (2004) and the Council of Europe (2012 and 2013).

Amy Brouillette

Director of the European Media Project

Amy Brouillette leads the Center for Media and Communication Studies at Central European University in Budapest’s research on European media policy, which includes the Center’s current “Strengthening Journalism in Europe” project, co-funded by the European Commission. She is also manages the Center’s monitoring and projects on the Hungarian media, and served as the principal researcher and editor of the Center’s 2012 study, Hungarian Media Laws in Europe.

She holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Colorado, Boulder (2007), and a master’s degree in Central European history from Central European University (2009). In 2008, Amy was a visiting graduate student in Harvard’s Russian, Eastern European, and Central Asian Studies (REECA) program, where she studied post-1989 media transitions in Central and Eastern Europe.

KATE COYER

Director of the Civil Society and Technology Project

Kate Coyer is Director the Civil Society and Technology Project for the Center for Media and Communication Studies in the School of Public Policy at CEU.

Her research examines the complexities of media practice and policy, digital rights advocacy, community media and communication for social change, the intersection of online and offline activism, the opportunities and challenges of emerging technologies, as well as the resilience of ‘old’ mediums like radio. After concluding her five years of administrative service as executive director where she led the Center’s growth and development into a leading media research center in Europe, Kate has returned fulltime to her research and contribute directly to scholarly pursuits and practical applications.

She currently leads two EU-funded projects for the Center. The first is aVirtual Center of Excellence for Research in Violent Online Political Extremism (VOX-Pol), a five year project supported by the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme Network run by Dublin City University. Kate’s research team will assess the role of internet companies, mobile operators and social media platforms in responding to violent online political extremism and to consider the complexities of the relationship between technology, free expression, and policy that lie at the heart of the relationship between global security and human rights. She also leads the Creative Approaches to Living Cultural Archives (CAPTCHA) project for the Center, a two year project run by Radio Halle, where she researches digital tools and technologies for open access multi-media exchange platforms for community media.

Leshuo Dong is a scholar in Residence at the School of International Service at American University, where she teaches a course on International Communication. Leshuo Dong has also been consulting for Communications & Society Program at the Aspen Institute. Leshuo Dong is currently completing his Ph.D. in the School of Journalism and Communication at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Her research interests lie in International Communication, with a concentration on public diplomacy. She has published in Communication, Politics and Culture, Chinese Journal of Journalism and Communication, Introduction to Journalism Research, Media Observerand Chinese Journalists. She has the experience of working for multiple organizations, including China Central Television and China Youth Daily.

IGINIO GAGLIARDONE

Research Fellow, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Oxford University

Iginio Gagliardone is Research Fellow in the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies and a member of the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy (PCMLP) at Oxford University. His research and publications focus on media and political change, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, and on the emergence of distinctive models of the information society worldwide. He is leading numerous research projects, from examining the role of Information and Communication Technologies in peace-building and state-building in Eastern Africa, to understanding the increasing role of emerging powers such as China in the media and telecommunication sectors in Africa, to analysing the nature and significance of hate speech online ahead of elections. He completed his PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science, investigating the relationship between development and destabilization in Ethiopia. He is also Research Associate of the Centre of Governance and Human Rights at the University of Cambridge and of the Centre for Global Communication Studies (CGCS), Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania.

DOUGLAS GRIFFIN

Director, Albany Associates

Douglas Griffin, director of Albany Associates (UK), served as Senior Legal Advisor for the Jordan Media Strengthening Program, where he advises on the establishment of a media law curriculum, the development of an annual media law and policy institute, and other law and policy issues. Griffin is an expert in communications and media strategy, law and policy, particularly in conflict, post-conflict and transitional environments.

Examples of projects include drafting a media development strategy for Somalia with input from ministries, other stakeholders, the United Nations and UN agencies and donors; drafting key legislation and regulations concerning media and telecommunications in Iraq; training senior management of national regulators of broadcasting and communications and government officials; and providing comprehensive broadcast and other regulatory advice to communications regulators and government ministries in Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Prior to joining Albany, Doug was in private practice with an international law firm in New York, Moscow and Paris.

ELLEN HUME

ANNENBERG FELLOW IN CIVIC MEDIA

Ellen Hume is the Annenberg Fellow in Civic Media. In this role, Ms. Hume is based at the Central European University’s Center for Media and Communications Studies (CMCS) in Budapest, Hungary, where she will continue her civic media work and participate in research projects undertaken by the Annenberg School and Central European University.

Ms. Hume was previously the Research Director at the Center for Future Civic Media in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the second Annenberg Fellow to work with CEU. Hume has more than 30 years of experience as a reporter and analyst for American newspapers, magazines and television. – See more here.

Min Jiang

Associate Professor of Communication, UNC Charlotte

Dr. Min Jiang is Associate Professor of Communication and Affiliate Faculty of International Studies at UNC Charlotte, also Research Affiliate at the Center for Global Communication Studies, University of Pennsylvania. She is an Advisory Board Member of Project Mosaic, a university social science research initiative and co-coordinator of Digital Arts, Sciences & Technologies (DAST), a College of Liberal Arts & Sciences initiative in digital humanities.

She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in new media technology, global media and research methods. Her research focuses on the intersections of Chinese Internet technologies, politics and policies.

Emad Khazraee

College of Communication and Information, Kent State University

Emad Khazraee is a sociotechnical information scientist and assistant professor in the College of Communication and Information Sciences at Kent State University. He held the position of Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Center for Global Communication Studies (CGCS) at the Annenberg School for Communication from 2014-2015. He received his Ph.D. in Information Studies from the College of Computing and Informatics at Drexel University.

His research is formed around the interplay between social and technical phenomena. Currently, he is studying the relationship between digital technologies, new media and social change. Emad is studying the cultural differences in new media use and the relationship between social change and digital technologies. Relying on sociotechnical approaches to social media studies and conceptual frameworks developed in Science Technology Studies (STS), he is exploring the role of social media in social transformations. Emad has been working with CGCS since 2012 and he is leading the Cartography of Iran’s Online Project.

LAUREN KOGEN

Media for Development Research Fellow

Lauren Kogen received her PhD in Communication from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Media Studies and Production at Temple University. Her research focuses on the role of media in development and in conflict-affected regions, media coverage of crises and conflicts, and monitoring and evaluation of media for development projects. She has worked with CGCS on several monitoring and evaluation projects and media for development projects, including ICTs, Statebuilding, and Peacebuilding in Eastern Africa, Radio La Benevolencija, Half the Sky, BBC Media Action, and USIP.

Her publications include “Deflecting the CNN Effect: Public opinion polling and Livingstonian outcomes” (with Monroe E. Price), Media, War & Conflict; “For the public good or just good publicity? Celebrities and humanitarianism,” Mass Communication & Society; “Savage deregulation in Thailand: Expanding Hallin & Mancini’s European Model,” Media, Culture, and Society; and “Why the message should matter: Genocide and the ethics of global journalism in the ‘mediapolis,’” Journal of International Communication.

HONGMEI LI

Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, Georgia State University

Hongmei Li is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication, Georgia State University. She was a George Gerbner Post-Doc Fellow at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania in 2008-2010.

In addition to conducting research and teaching at Annenberg, she works on China-related projects with Professor Monroe Price at the Center for Global Communication Studies. She co-organized the 7th Chinese Internet Research Conference with Monroe Price and Lokman Tsui in May 2009. Hongmei Li obtained her Ph.D. from USC Annenberg in December 2006. Her reserach interests focus on advertising and consumer culture, nationalism, cultural identity, gender studies, nation branding, culture of new technology and Chinese culture, politics and society. She has presented at many national and international conferences. She has published recently in Critical Studies in Media Communication, the International Journal of Communication, and Public Relations Review. Several of her book chapters have also been scheduled to be published in peer-reviewed books soon.

REBECCA MACKINNON

Director, Ranking Digital Rights

Rebecca MacKinnon is director of the Ranking Digital Rights project at the New America Foundation, developing a methodology to rank Internet, telecommunications, and other ICT sector companies on free expression and privacy criteria. A pilot study will be conducted in 2014, then an annual index or ranking of companies will be launched in 2015.

Devra C. Moehler is Assistant Professor at the Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on comparative political communication, democratization, partisan information sources, and political behavior, with a focus on Africa. Her current research projects include: a field experiment on partisan media effects in Ghana; survey research on partisan media effects in the United States; and a survey experiment on how party symbols and candidate photos on election ballots affect voting in Uganda. She is author of the book Distrusting Democrats: Outcomes of Participatory Constitution Making (University of Michigan Press 2008), which argues that participation in a new democracy can create citizens who are democratic in their attitudes but suspicious of their government. Previously, Moehler was Assistant Professor of Government at Cornell University and a Fellow at the Harvard Academy of International and Area Studies. In addition, she served as a Democracy Fellow at USAID, where she provided technical assistance in the design of experimental and quasi-experimental impact evaluations of democracy and governance assistance programs.

LIBBY MORGAN

As Associate Director from 2009-2012, Libby Morgan supported the development, planning and administration of all CGCS activities, including research efforts, policy work, conferences, and training programs. She also worked with Professor Price on the Center’s publication initiatives, including the publication of Measuring Press Freedom; Broadcasting, Voice and Accountability; and Owning the Olympics: Narratives of the New China. In 2006, she received an MA in International Relations, with a concentration in Media and Communications, from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. Prior to graduate school, she worked in international advertising and publishing in Washington, DC. She received her BA from Dartmouth College.

SHAWN POWERS

Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, Georgia State University

Shawn Powers specializes in international political communication, with particular attention to the geopolitics of information and information technologies. His current book project focuses on how nation-states adjust to an international system increasingly governed by information-driven financial, political and media networks rather than the geographic and temporal networks of old

His previous research essays have appeared in Media War & Conflict, Global Media & Communication, Ethnopolitics, Argumentation & Advocacy, Orbis and the Journal of Middle East Media and in edited volumes published by Oxford University Press, Palgrave Macmillan, Peter Lang Publishing, the New Press and Routledge.

Dr. Powers co-directs the annual Annenberg-Oxford Summer Institute on Media, Policy and Law at Oxford University (UK) and the GSU study abroad program to Istanbul, Turkey titled, “Media, Journalism and Business in a Global Context.” (Click here for Course Blog) Powers is also an occasional commentator for CNN International, The Guardian, Russia Today and National Public Radio.

Previously, Powers was appointed to a visiting assistant professorship overseeing USC Annenberg’s London Program in conjunction with a research fellowship at the London School of Economics and Political Science for the 2009-2010 academic year. He has traveled widely in the Middle East connecting to his own ethnographic and social scientific research as well as to the study of public diplomacy, and has received funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Department of State, Deutsche Welle and the USC Center for Public Diplomacy.

Sandra Ristovska

Filmaker and Annenberg PhD Candidate

Sandra Ristovska is a filmmaker and a PhD Candidate in communication at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania. Her research explores the role of video in public policy with a particular focus on human rights video advocacy. Sandra is a recipient of the Top Paper Award from the Philosophy, Theory and Critique Division at the International Communication Association (ICA) and the Herbert Schiller Prize from the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). Her research, reviews, and media commentaries have appeared in The Communication Review, the American Journal of Sociology, the World Policy Institute Blog, and Public Books. Sandra is a co-chair of the Emerging Scholars Network (ESN) of IAMCR, co-director of camra, an interdisciplinary media research group at UPenn, and an honorary, non-resident Research Fellow at the Center for Media and Communication Studies at the Central European University in Hungary.

Krisztina Rozgonyi

Senior Regulator and Legal Advisor

Dr. Krisztina Rozgonyi has been a senior regulator and legal adviser for a number of governments, regulators, and companies in Hungary. Dr. Rozgonyi was the Chairperson of the Telecoms Authority in Hungary, acts as adviser to the Serbian Government on digital switchover, and was the director of an Annenberg/World Bank InfoDev project in Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Moldova, and Georgia. As an ITU/UN expert she also works for governments and regulators in Africa, most recently for the Rwandan regulator (RURA) and is involved in various EU initiatives on media freedom in the ENP region (e.g. in Egypt, Israel). Recently she has been involved with EC efforts on the creation of Pan-European audiovisual domains while addressing copyright aspects, and she has led the Hungarian copyright experts’ team on aspects of online access to audiovisual works and archives during the “Licenses for Europe” stakeholder dialogue launched by the European Commission. Her special areas of expertise are media and telecommunications regulation, digital switchover legal strategies, media law focusing on digital age issues and copyright law focusing on digital archives. Dr. Rozgonyi is member of the advisory board of the International Journal of Digital Television and of the Media Governance and Industries Research Lab at the University of Vienna.

Nicole Stremlau

Director, PCMLP

Dr. Nicole Stremlau is Head of the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy and a Research Fellow in the Centre of Socio-Legal Studies.

Nicole Stremlau’s research focuses on media and governance, particularly in areas of conflict and insecurity in Africa. Her most recent projects examine the role of new media in political participation and governance; media law and regulation in the absence of government or in weak states;the role of media in conflict, peacebuilding and the consolidation of political power; and how governments attempt to engage citizens and communicate law-making processes. Stremlau’s doctoral work explored the role of media during the guerrilla insurgencies in Uganda and Ethiopia, and how the successive governments used the media to consolidate political power in the aftermath of violence.

SAHANA UDUPA

Fellow at the Max Planck Institute

Sahana Udupa is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Germany. She has research interests in news production, mediation studies, media regulation, mediated urbanism and postcolonial theory. Her current project explores the intersections between news production, urban expansion and mediated religious practices in India. Her doctoral research at the National Institute of Advanced Studies examined the dynamics of bilingual news field and urban politics in the globalizing city of Bangalore in India, and how new ideas of news shape and get shaped by a deeply fractured urban landscape.

She was a Spring 2010 Visiting Scholar at the Center for Global Communication Studies and is currently a CGCS Affiliate.Her articles have been published in Contributions to Indian Sociology, Economic and Political Weekly, India in Transition series (published by CASI, UPenn), e-social sciences and some are forthcoming in American Ethnologist and South Asian History and Culture, among others.

STEFAAN VERHULST

Co-Founder and Chief Research and Development Officer, Governance Laboratory @NYU

Stefaan G. Verhulst is Co-Founder and Chief Research and Development Officer of the Governance Laboratory @NYU (GovLab) where he is responsible for building a research foundation on how to transform governance using advances in science and technology.

Verhulst’s latest scholarship centers on how technology can improve people’s lives and the creation of more effective and collaborative forms of governance. Specifically, he is interested in the perils and promise of collaborative technologies and how to harness the unprecedented volume of information to advance the public good.

Before joining NYU full time, Verhulst spent more than a decade as Chief of Research for the Markle Foundation, where he continues to serve as Senior Advisor. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Culture and Communications at New York University, Senior Research Fellow for the Center for Media and Communications Studies at Central European University in Budapest; and an Affiliated Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Global Communications Studies at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communications.

Previously at Oxford University he co-founded and was the Head of the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy at the Centre for Socio Legal Studies, and also served as Senior Research Fellow of Wolfson College. He is still an emeritus fellow at Oxford. He also taught several years at the London School of Economics. He has served as consultant to various international and national organizations including the Council of Europe, European Commission, Unesco, UNDP, USAID and DFID.

Guobin Yang

Associate Professor, University of Pennsylvania

Guobin Yang is an Associate Professor of Communication and Sociology in the Annenberg School for Communication and Department of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. His research areas cover digital media, political communication, global communication, social movements, cultural sociology, and the sociology of China.

Prof. Yang is a member of the editorial boards of The China Quarterly, Public Culture, Contemporary Sociology, and the International Convention for Asian Studies Publications Series of the Amsterdam University Press. He received a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation “Writing and Research Grant” (2003) and was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington , D.C. (2003-2004). Previously he taught as an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and as an associate professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures at Barnard College of Columbia University. He has a Ph. D. in English Literature with a specialty in Literary Translation from Beijing Foreign Studies University (1993) and a second Ph.D. in Sociology from New York University (2000).